Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The End is Nigh

Yeah, no it's not.

Just by googling something like a billboard that tells you the world is ending this coming Saturday, May 21st, you get a lot of results. There's a page listing the failed predictions between the years of 30AD and Now.

And, uh, we're still here.

This has got to be short and sweet. And I'm going to make a strong declaration. If these people who run whatever religions and organizations they run are apparently in touch with the Lord enough, with the Bible enough, to make claims that Judgement day is beginning this Saturday, 21st, then I will assert that I'm just as in touch with the Lord, and just as educated in my ability to read the Bible to claim that the world isn't, in fact, going to start to end this weekend.

There you go.

I'm a Christian. Let me just say, if it is going to go down like people think it's going to go down, we're not gonna' know about it and there won't be billboards and we'll probably be genuinely surprised.

But these are kooks. This is a rouse to build a listenership to their radio programs, to get money, and to bask in the glory that is 15 minutes of fame.

So, here I am standing on my digital soapbox. If I had the money to put up billboards, they would read, "Saturday May 21st!!!! Just another Saturday! Going to be a little balmy, wrap up, read a book, make some TEEEEEEAAAAAAA!"

It's truly insanity, and it sure doesn't do anyone who claims to also be a Christian, like myself, any favors when crazy people make me look crazy too. I certainly don't appreciate it. Whatever religion they are, I'm not that religion and I strongly urge you never to be as well. They're liars and cheats and don't care about you. If you don't buy into their propoganda, "OH YOU'LL BE SORRY! YOU'LL SEE!!"

No you won't. Saturday will come and go and we'll eat our cereal and watch our cartoons and then it'll be Sunday and people will laugh.

If crazy people get to boast about apparently everyone else in the world being wrong, and they being right, then you know what, I get to do it too. It's rare that I would be so audacious in making such a claim, but here it is:

The world is not ending this Saturday. These people are wrong and I am right.

4 comments:

Interesting post. I sincerely that think people do this for the same reason they watch horror movies. They like to be scared. And of course there are some crazy people out there who ruin the reputation of those around them. There always have been and there always will be.

I think, however, there are two main points that need to be addressed when discussing these types of things. The first being that I think we perhaps can all agree that any person who is somewhat reasonable and rational can see that these people do not represent the vast majority of Christians. Even Evangelicals who spend a lot of time thinking about the End Times don't try to predict the time and day. The second point is to say that scripture says that the end will be "like a thief in the night." We will not know the time or the day. So any guessing is a useless gesture.

Will the world end on May 21st? It might. Or it might not. If Jesus doesn't know the time or day then how can we? I think what we should take from this is that if we live our life through Christ EVERY day we won't need to worry about it.

(I had to remove my first comment because I simply cannot spell properly. Sorry!)

Thanks, very much, for your post, Will! I appreciate your sentiments about this matter and I feel much as you do.

As an Evangelical Christian, I am profoundly embarrassed that Harold Camping of Family Radio has drawn so much attention to this prediction. His mathematical calculation has some evident logical basis. Except that he begins with the traditional fundamentalist 4,900 BC creation date and the attendant presumption that God created the earth with the "appearance of age."

The genuine message of God's love for those He has drawn irresistably to Himself gets lost in all the frabba-jabba about end times dating. Even Camping has to write off the Matthew 24:36-42 passage by saying that it only applied to the "church age," which Camping now declares is at an end.

Does a part of me hope Jesus returns on Saturday? Yeah! Why not? I will be restored to full health and spend eternity with Him.

But, do I think He will come in response to Harold Camping's prediction? Nah!

For my part, I will hold onto the Matthew 24 passage:

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

"Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come."